Cyprus-Forum.com

[Nikitas]

Bananiot,

I accept your observations on the current situation. Naturally it would be unlikely that a TC would become president in one generation. But why make the safeguards so as to include the provision that the president will always be a GC? In a unitary system as that envisaged in the Zurich treaty the ethnic division of the Presidency and Vice Presidency were understandable. In a Federal system where there is bizonality and bicommunality it is reasonable to expect all citizens to vote for the president if for no other reason than to have the highest office open to all citizens if not in practice at least in theory. ALso because under a BBF the safeguards are put in via other means and not just the ethnic origins of the two highest office holders.

In addition to the theoretical aspect there is the practical aspect that all presidential candidates would campaign for the votes of all ciitizens and thus encourage both communication and political cohesion. It might even make the TCs the most critical political force in Cyprus politics.

If we add to the above the reserving of the vice presidency for TCs, then there will be an automatic creation of the "joint ticket" which Christofias proposed in the talks, but without formalising the system in the constitution. How else would a GC politician address his TC voters if he does not have a TC partner? And how would he approach those voters if he did not look at their day to day problems. It will no longer be possible to ignore 18 per cent of citizens as was done in the past.

Of course the realistic way is to accept the division which is being built into the government system now negotiated. If we did not communicate sufficiently and did not pay attention to each other's communal problems when we lived in mixed village and towns one wonders how it will be under a bizonal system.

[Bananiot]

Well, rotating presidency seems the only way to tackle this issue at the moment. I am just being practical and leave sentiments behind. May be in one hundred years, after we have been living together in peace and we prosper together, we can together decide to change things for the better. I stress the word together, because in the past we tried to change things unilaterally and remove the rights of the TC's they had in the 1959 constitution.

[Piratis]

Well, rotating presidency seems the only way to tackle this issue at the moment. I am just being practical and leave sentiments behind. May be in one hundred years, after we have been living together in peace and we prosper together, we can together decide to change things for the better. I stress the word together, because in the past we tried to change things unilaterally and remove the rights of the TC's they had in the 1959 constitution.

Do you know anybody that gives up privileges voluntarily? And then you call yourself a realist. Once we sign away our rights thats it. We are not getting any of them back, not without a war at least. The TCs will just say "if you didn't like it, you shouldn't have signed it".

And we never wanted to take away any of their rights, just the unfair privilages that where granted to them by the Turks and British as a reward for helping them oppress our revolution for freedom.

The biggest "crime" we ever commited was asking from the TCs to be equal citizens without Ottoman style privileges on the loss of the rest of the Cypriots.

[Paphitis]

Nikitas, please climb down from the clouds. You know as well as anyone that the only way a TC can be President is through rotating presidency. Never mind whom you can vote for, is whom the majority votes for that counts. In Cyprus and in the Greek world at large the word turk is synonymous to a dirty word. If you want to belittle someone you call him a Turk or a Turk spawn. This was not brought about by the events of 1974 but it is an inherent behaviour of the majority of Greeks that goes back a long way because of the way history is taught in our schools.

Of all the idiotic statements you have made, you now come along and post this.

Please tell me what the purpose of this post is, other than to undermine our side?

What are your objectives? Is it to undermine our sides ability to negotiate a more fairer outcome?

Why should we have a rotating Presidency? It is an insult to democracy to allow a minority free reign over the Presidency without popular support.

The office of President should be open to TCs as well as all ther Cypriot citizens. The President must be elected by popular vote. If a TC candidate has the interests of Cyprus at heart, and is the best candidate, then there is no reason why GCs will not support him. The issue however is that the TCs do not have any allegiance to Cyprus. Their allegiance is with Turkey.

You can not sign away our democratic rights by enforcing us to accept a rotating Presidency without our popular support.

[Kifeas]

Nikitas, please climb down from the clouds. You know as well as anyone that the only way a TC can be President is through rotating presidency. Never mind whom you can vote for, is whom the majority votes for that counts. In Cyprus and in the Greek world at large the word turk is synonymous to a dirty word. If you want to belittle someone you call him a Turk or a Turk spawn. This was not brought about by the events of 1974 but it is an inherent behaviour of the majority of Greeks that goes back a long way because of the way history is taught in our schools.

Of all the idiotic statements you have made, you now come along and post this.

Please tell me what the purpose of this post is, other than to undermine our side?

What are your objectives? Is it to undermine our sides ability to negotiate a more fairer outcome?

Why should we have a rotating Presidency? It is an insult to democracy to allow a minority free reign over the Presidency without popular support.

The office of President should be open to TCs as well as all ther Cypriot citizens. The President must be elected by popular vote. If a TC candidate has the interests of Cyprus at heart, and is the best candidate, then there is no reason why GCs will not support him. The issue however is that the TCs do not have any allegiance to Cyprus. Their allegiance is with Turkey.

You can not sign away our democratic rights by enforcing us to accept a rotating Presidency without our popular support.

Paphitis, is the problem with rotating presidency, rotating presidency as such, or that it may have no popular support by both communities?

If it is the latter, then the issue may become addressed, if both communities may either jointly or separately decide who the rotating presidents will be. However, if it is the former, i.e. rotating presidency with the TCs as such, then I am afraid you are not realistic at all in your aims.

[Kifeas]

Well, rotating presidency seems the only way to tackle this issue at the moment. I am just being practical and leave sentiments behind. May be in one hundred years, after we have been living together in peace and we prosper together, we can together decide to change things for the better. I stress the word together, because in the past we tried to change things unilaterally and remove the rights of the TC's they had in the 1959 constitution.

Bananiot, there are several ways in which the rotating presidency and the formation of the federal government may become decided. There is the Annan plan way, there is the Talat way as it was proposed in these current negotiations, and there is the CG way as it was proposed by Christofias. Which of the 3 methods /ways do you agree with, and why?

PS: I already know with which one you agree, and I have also read last Sunday’s garbage article by Loukas Charalambous, however I would like you to elaborate on the issue, in order to figure out whether I am right in my predictions, but also give you a chance to do a better job than the lousy one Loukas did last week.

[Paphitis]

Nikitas, please climb down from the clouds. You know as well as anyone that the only way a TC can be President is through rotating presidency. Never mind whom you can vote for, is whom the majority votes for that counts. In Cyprus and in the Greek world at large the word turk is synonymous to a dirty word. If you want to belittle someone you call him a Turk or a Turk spawn. This was not brought about by the events of 1974 but it is an inherent behaviour of the majority of Greeks that goes back a long way because of the way history is taught in our schools.

Of all the idiotic statements you have made, you now come along and post this.

Please tell me what the purpose of this post is, other than to undermine our side?

What are your objectives? Is it to undermine our sides ability to negotiate a more fairer outcome?

Why should we have a rotating Presidency? It is an insult to democracy to allow a minority free reign over the Presidency without popular support.

The office of President should be open to TCs as well as all ther Cypriot citizens. The President must be elected by popular vote. If a TC candidate has the interests of Cyprus at heart, and is the best candidate, then there is no reason why GCs will not support him. The issue however is that the TCs do not have any allegiance to Cyprus. Their allegiance is with Turkey.

You can not sign away our democratic rights by enforcing us to accept a rotating Presidency without our popular support.

Paphitis, is the problem with rotating presidency, rotating presidency as such, or that it may have no popular support by both communities?

If it is the latter, then the issue may become addressed, if both communities may either jointly or separately decide who the rotating presidents will be. However, if it is the former, i.e. rotating presidency with the TCs as such, then I am afraid you are not realistic at all in your aims.

The issue is giving a minority of some 18% unfair privileges at the expense of the majority.

You tell me which country has such a system in place. It is also counterproductive, as we may elect a brilliant President, a statesman if you like, only to have him resign his post to make way for a TC President under this rotating system.

I prefer to see political parties to include membership from all facets of society, and for the TCs to have the right to actually run for the Presidency. If this TC candidate is the best, and truly has our interests at heart, then there is no reason why we would not vote for him/her.

Why am I not realistic? In Cyprus you have an excellent future prospect who should become President. He hails from a community that is less than 1% of the total population of Cyprus.

The Americans also elected an African American as their President!

[Piratis]

Although never been done anywhere else, applying some form of affirmative action for the presidency could be possible. This would mean that it would be required that 1 every 5 presidents is a TC. So if no TC was voted in the normal way for 4 consecutive terns, then in the 5th term it would be required to be a TC.

However any president should be elected by the vote of the Cypriot people as a whole. Having a president who was voted only by the 9% of the people is a mockery of democracy.

[Nikitas]

And let us not forget that with the legalisation of tens of thousands of settlers the rotating president, as well as his constituents, can very easily be non Cypriots, which would be much worse than making mockery of democracy.

[bigOz]

Piratis

.....Following the above scenario (which is exactly what Turkey will activate - and they would be stupid not to), IF we are lucky, the EU etc will recognise 2 separate states in Cyprus and the 18% TCs will end up with 30% of land and 50% of coastline. If we are not lucky, we will continue as an unrecognised pariah state (much as the current TRNC) begging for a guardian to protect us.

I believe that for both GCs and TCs to accept any such arranagement (i.e. "equal partnership of 2 component states"), the land sharing should be 82:18 and there should be clear provisions stating that if for any reason the "partnership" breaks down, then both component states will automatically become full UN and EU members. There should also be EU/ Nato guarantees and the solution and abolishment of RoC should only take place at the same time as Turkey hands over the land to GCs and not a minute before.

Youa are conveniently confusing the issue of population and the land owned by the TCs. Please read more to find the true figures!

The TCs were 18% now they are more than 25% od the island's population! And do not give me all that crap about mainland Turks settling here - so did mainland Greeks for the duration of 1963-1964 in their thousands! You want proof I'll give you proof but I am a little busy today - ask and I will oblige later.

As for the land, it is officially recognised by all that the TCs always owned (by deeds) at least 30% of the land and even more before the exodus back to Turkey started between 1914 and 1050s, when they sold their land to TCs and GCs alike.

So how do you propose that the TCs should have only 18 % of the land?